A children's party is disrupted by a group of violent teenagers. The only adult present has been seriously injured and when her daughter tries to run for help, she is fatally struck by a vehicle. When two of the gang members turn up dead, attention turns to the distraught mother and evidence is found that implicates her in their deaths. Inspector Louise Rick is investigating the murder of a shipping agent that seems to involve bikers and fake designer furniture, but her foster son was at that fateful party and she soons finds herself knee-deep in that case as well. I really wanted to like this book. I saw lots of praise for Blaedel, Denmark's "most popular novelist" and there's quite a few books in the series. But I just didn't feel it. I kept reading, thinking it would get more exciting, that something would draw me in, but it never happened. I had to force myself to slog through it. Maybe this just wasn't the book to start with. I hate it when a book can't stand on its own and you're totally lost if you haven't read the series from the beginning. I did get some of that feeling here, but that wasn't its only drawback.